Test

I am currently enrolled in a class of lovely aspiring teachers.  The midterm exam is upon us.  It is described as a written examination designed to evaluate comprehension of material covered up to this point.  I have not taken a test of this kind in two decades.

Dictionary.com offers the following for the noun test.
1.  the means by which the presence, quality, or genuineness of anything is determined; a means of trial
2.  the trial of the quality of something
3.  a particular process or method for trying or assessing
4.  a set of questions, problems, or the like, used as a means of evaluating the abilities, aptitudes, skills, or performance of an individual or group; examination

As anxieties over the impending test were discussed I mentally departed the fretful dialogue to ask my external observer for her take on things.  She said, “Name what a test is.  Name what a test is not.” 

A test is a written set of questions, a normal part of taking a class.  A test is a tool for school mentors to evaluate the amount of information learned in their course.  A test is indicative of my performance in one area not in my life at large.  A test is something that requires preparation.  A test is not punishment.  A test is not an indication if the instructor likes me or not.  A test is not to determine if I am smart in general.  A test is not for telling me I am a success or failure in life.  A test is not a party, a vacation, a gold medal or a death threat.  A test is what it is and any other power it possesses is given it by the person scratching their number two pencils across its pages.

Am I thrilled over the set of questions ahead?  Nope.  I may have a headache during the test.  My dinner may not be digesting comfortable.  Life may have sucked me dry that day and I may just not be in the mood.  I likely will not have all the time I want to spend reflecting on my notes and handouts. 

So what is a student to do?  Study.  Reread.  Breathe.  Move through the material.  And know most of the time we are able to do so much more than that for which we give ourselves credit. 

Questions

Is there a God who knows why or all the answers

problems on the test of patience in showing a high grade

or fever when really the point, the success is finding

confidence in what you are uniquely capable of and can do

because nobody can instill matter if too afraid to be

tested with temporary parchment in fire fanned by breath

Yellow

The world outside my window is yellow, double saturated – once by the yellow accumulation on the panes of glass and once by powder inundated air.  The annual dust emitted from pine trees descends and every year feels shocking even though the onslaught is a repeat performance.   You’d think it would no longer astound me, but every year about this time my world turns yellow and I am in awe.

The first entry listed at dictionary.com in defining the noun yellow is “a color like that of egg yolk, ripe lemons, etc.; the primary color between green and orange in the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 570 and 590 nm.”

Yellow is also defined in adjective and verb forms, but I’m sticking with the noun as the yellow of my day’s thoughts is surely a thing.  A spring thing.  Tomorrow is the official first day of spring but calendar or not there is no missing the color blasted action going on outside in South Carolina.  I sit in stunned amazement that there could actually be so much color of egg yolk everywhere. 

When you breathe outside the air smells fabulous.  And your sinuses fill with powder that requires a series of snot-locker cleaning sneezes.  The air seems to bear visual weight because it is thick with floating plant pollen whereas just days ago it offered no sensory sensation at all.  And you know that as much of the pollen we can see is matched by the rest we cannot emitted from plants whose pollen is much smaller than that of the pine.  Eyelids get puffy.  Heads feel swollen.  Noses run.  And we query, why must this happen every year?  But we know, plant procreation. 

Pollen is amazing potential male matter on a mission.  From Wikipedia I learned that each pollen grain contains vegetative, non-reproductive cells (only a single cell in most flowering plants but several in other seed plants) and a generative, reproductive cell containing two nuclei: a tube nucleus and a generative nucleus that divides to form two sperm cells when proper pollination occurs.  All that microscopic virility is floating around looking for a receptive place to land and join with the female half of the genetic material needed to keep on keeping on.  Amazing!  Allergy inducing.  And yellow. 

 

Yell, Oh!

dewy blonde daffodil faces sing, look at me!  look at me!

silt of pine tree sex sifting sufficiently through the air coating

every surface and cranny, cars, porches, sidewalks, swings

even open eyeballs in a fine dusting of golden grit, silent

signs of other living creatures insuring their seasonal survival

soon washed as yellow chalk streams in short showers

dogwood blooms center open four pure petals, pervasive

honeysuckle scented sunlight tantalizes tiny human hairs

across winter-pale faces, inhaled specks insure sneezing

seeing obvious signs, flaxen flip-flop lemonade sundress time

as cool buttery mornings proffer crisp apple-flesh air, sweet

smelling spring releasing colorful reproduction everywhere

Grown-up

I am totally not feeling like a kid.  This should not seem such a surprise to me since I have been alive over forty years.  But every now and then, like today, it sinks in that I am absolutely, no doubt, can’t deny it, a grown-up. 

Dictionary.com lists the following definition for the noun grown-up:  a mature, fully grown person; adult.

This definition is one of the shorter I have encountered and offers no nuances, no alternative meanings, just one plain and straightforward.  I do, however, aver there is some wiggle room in the adjective “mature” for certain.

How do I know that I am a grown-up?  I own shoes that I have had for over ten years (you know, the black heels for funerals and weddings) indicating my body is fully grown because they still fit.  I am a registered voter, a licensed drive, a parent of three children, married thirteen years, and an active member of two school communities.  I actually want to go to bed at 9:30.  I think a cup of coffee is a treat.  My taxes take way more than one page and one hour to complete.  I have a mortgage.  I drive a white minivan.  I know how much money is in my bank account and budget accordingly.  These are the facts folks and I embrace every one of them!

Being a grown-up is not a bad thing.  I still have toys albeit they are typically kitchen gadgets or fingernail accoutrements.  I totally love it when someone will play a card game of virtually any kind with me.  Hanging out with my friends is super fun.  Museums and parks continue to entice and amuse me.  A trip to the public library brings joy and unending discoveries. 

The part that sneaks up and gooses me is the one that gets tired, feels the responsibility of all the things that offer proof of my adultness.  I don’t want to be a kid.  Been there, done that, ya know?  But sometimes it seems like a little less fun to be mature and full grown, like maybe less is possible because so much has already happened and so many obligations promised?

         Fully Grown

         Big body holds the beating heart that has been

         bumpity bump pumping red blood since birth

         before even the world heard her scream.

         Big body bears tiny freckles formed during family

         frolics fra-la-la-ing from swing to slide singing

         songs of watermelon and sprinklers.

         Big body stretches palms to the sky showing blue

         veins voluminous vessels grown large with time

         providing prayer and packing lunches.

         Big Body still feels there is so much to learn even

         after becoming teacher, adult reacher for days

         ahead with the same sense of a child.

Embodied

We all have one – a body.  Life experiences we have are manifested through physical selves.  My mind, the psychological self which resides in my body, is chewing on this idea with its mushy, lumpy, fleshy little teeth and the digestion seems slow and attentive.  It is the embodied self that is the real deal, the package in which we rest. 

Embodied is listed as a form of the verb embody in the entry found at dictionary.com.
1.  to give concrete form to; express, personify, or exemplify in concrete form:  to embody an idea in an allegorical painting.
2.  to provide with a body; incarnate; make corporal:  to embody a spirit.
3.  to collect into or include in a body; organize; incorporate.
4.  to embrace or comprise

Also at dictionary.com The Online Etymology Dictionary, 2010 Douglas Harper offers that embody traces to c.1652 in reference to a soul or spirit invested with a physical form.  This word history captures what I am pondering this morning.  I happen to hold fast to the idea that we are spirit.  But at this moment we are bodied spirit.  I cannot be otherwise.  I am corporal.  My fingers are typing.  My belly is digesting.  My lungs are filling and emptying.  My brain is chug-a-lug-lugging along crafting sentences for this blog, listening for the laundry cycle timer, wondering what’s for lunch, anticipating the grocery store, thinking I should have some hot tea.      

Being embodied is so straightforward and obvious yet for me has taken a long time to figure out.  How can that be?  Perhaps because in my social history exists years of learning that the body is to be denied, is bad, is an enslavement, that all help for me is outside myself.  But new ideas offer me the body as a path to the soul.  Knowing it.  Moving it.  Being present in it.

I’m not advocating a wild physical free for all, for that is not honoring the body or the soul.  Abusing one’s body is not a path to true self but a numbing agent.  Understanding how our human body works, how best to care for it and live in it, knowing how to make choices that are good for our physical selves lends itself to the spiritual growth that blossoms into contentment.  Or at least that’s where I’m placing my bets.

              Physical Education

              Roaring flame-red rubber ball stings soft stomach skin
              skidding from fingertips fired fast behind the lines, telling

              in and out of traditional bounds, the court rules everybody
              fools somebody sometimes selling distractions.  Nobody

              knows the great guts it takes to build a balanced body, baby
          first swimming, screaming into prerequisite skin life begins

              cells and senses, bones, limbs and lips, lungs, eyes, elbows
          hunger and feces finding happy homebody hasten to rest

              sitting with a neighbor getting the scoop of being anatomy
              busybody breathing the business of life, learning incarnate.